How Movies Have A Blockbuster Impact On Abu Dhabi’s Economy

Tom Cruise filming in the Abu Dhabi desert for ‘Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning – Part One’.

Christian Black

When heist movie Now You See Me: Now You Don’t debuts on Friday, audiences will be treated to a stream of futuristic settings where a team of illusionists led by Jesse Eisenberg try to stage an audacious robbery. Even though the backdrops wouldn’t look out of place in a sci-fi film, not one of them was computer generated.

Sports events, billboards and travel shows spring to mind when most people think of ways to promote cities. Movies aren’t likely to be high on their agendas but they should be.

The impact of sports is limited by the fact that events rarely showcase the exteriors of local landmarks, let alone the interiors. They also tend to be fixed to at most a few locations with even marathons having little flexibility about where the course can travel.

Then comes the fan factor. If a city becomes famous for one team winning there, it isn’t likely to be a top vacation destination for fans of its rivals. And although many sports pride themselves on their blockbuster attendance, in reality, the Olympics is the only single event that attracts more than a million spectators to a city in any given year and even that is largely confined to stadiums.

Billboards are limited by what they can display and their visibility depends on passing traffic. Likewise, although travel shows have wide scope, their audience depends entirely on the reach of the network. They are also often seen as being promotional. In contrast, showcasing a city in a movie drives almost subliminal exposure.

Few, if any, forms of promotion can compare to seeing sweeping landscapes on the silver screen, especially when they are integral to the action. Not only can it reach millions of people but it does so when they are in a heightened state of emotion. Their attention is focused on the action and the backdrop is front and center. The allure of the stars rub off on the destination and vice versa.

The relationship is equally harmonious for studios and cities as many locations offer lucrative fiscal incentives for filming there. In turn, film crews spend on local services such as catering, security, shops and hotels. That generates economic impact and it doesn’t stop there.

Studios also often hire local extras and use local agencies, such as visual effects firms, which builds up a grassroots industry. Few cities have used this to such great effect as Abu Dhabi.

A New Chapter

The fortunes of the glitzy Middle Eastern Emirate were built on oil and gas but as its reserves began to dwindle it made a strategic decision to diversify its economy. This process began in 2006 and has been fueled by expansion in sport, tourism and media.

It explains why the city hosts NBA and UFC matches and why it has become the world’s leading developer of indoor theme parks as I have reported. With an average annual temperature of around 84 degrees there are few outdoor parks in Abu Dhabi but it excels at indoor venues with one of them featuring undoubtedly the world’s most cutting-edge ride. It has also become a hub for filming and film-making and has used its incentives scheme more effectively than perhaps any other location worldwide.

This author has written extensively about the fiscal incentives which attract film-making to the United Kingdom. It refunds up to 25.5% of the money spent on filming in the U.K. and this hasn’t just attracted blockbuster movies but the studios themselves.

It began in 2010 when Warner Bros. bought Leavesden Studios where all eight Harry Potter movies were made along with the three Fantastic Beasts spinoffs. Nine years later Disney signed a deal which reportedly gave it use of almost all of Pinewood Studios for a decade while arch-rivals Amazon and Netflix have taken up long-term residence in nearby Shepperton.

However, unlike Abu Dhabi, the history of the UK’s top film studios stretches back nearly a century. Oliver Twist, starring Alec Guinness, was filmed at Pinewood in 1948 while the inaugural James Bond movie, Dr. No, was also made there in 1962 and was followed by the first Superman movie in 1978. To put this in perspective, that was just seven years after the formation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where Abu Dhabi is located.

Since Abu Dhabi introduced its film industry incentives in 2013, it has created an even more attractive production environment than the one in the U.K. It is led by a blockbuster pairing of media managers who roll out the red carpet for movie studios and the entire city reels in the returns.

“The Creative Media Authority (CMA) of Abu Dhabi is mandated to grow and develop the creative industries to diversify the economy of the nation. A key strategic pillar of this is the development of a strong and growing film production and postproduction industry which is delivered via the Abu Dhabi Film Commission [ADFC].” explains Mohamed Dobay, acting director general of the CMA.

Dobay is a business luminary with a career spanning nearly four decades starting in 1991 when he cut his teeth as chief accountant at Abu Dhabi’s Grand Mills. Nine years later he changed track and switched to Abu Dhabi Media Company, the national broadcaster which also operates the local National Geographic network. Dobay became its chief financial officer before he took the same role at Abu Dhabi’s media and entertainment hub twofour54 in 2018 and then joined the CMA two years ago.

It has followed a magic formula and at the heart of it is a reimbursement plan which refunds between 35% and 50% of the money that movie studios spend in Abu Dhabi.

The Magic Formula

The ADFC’s head Sameer Al Jaberi explains that the rebate was recently expanded and now “applies to additional production formats, including reality TV, game shows, short films and animations. This expansion of formats bolsters the existing formats of feature films, TV series and programmes and TV commercials which have been supported since the introduction of the rebate in 2013.”

One of the region’s most seasoned media veterans, Al Jaberi started as a TV presenter in 2012 but soon realised his strongest skills were behind the camera. After moving to twofour54 he quickly rose through the ranks which put him on ADFC’s radar and in 2024 he became its boss.

Al Jaberi adds that the cap on the sum payable to feature films has also been increased and now comes to $10 million. The money doesn’t take long to arrive as “producers now will see paid funds in 30 business days – previously 60 business days – speeding up the already swift process.”

The precise amount they are paid is based on a number of factors and Al Jaberi says that this includes “featuring the UAE’s national history and culture in content; completing full postproduction activity in Abu Dhabi; main unit production in Abu Dhabi of a feature film; and/or filming an entire TV series in the Emirate.” There is plenty of capacity.

More than 800 local media companies are based in Abu Dhabi along with trained crews and a 1,000-strong talent pool of freelancers which enables studios to fulfil the majority of their recruitment needs locally. This reduces the need to fly in workers which keeps costs down. That doesn’t mean cutting corners on quality as Abu Dhabi’s location between the east and the west gives local crew members an even broader range of experience than many of their counterparts in the United States.

“Having hosted major teams from around the world including Hollywood, Bollywood and Arabic film production for more than a decade, our teams are extremely experienced in facilitating a wide variety of production formats,” says Al Jaberi.

“We facilitate and mobilise a lot of local staff for shoots and it all depends on the specific requirements of the visiting production team as to what they need. Of course, there are some general on-ground requirements every international team needs such as transport, visas, logistics, location services, catering, extras and local producers but we’re finding frequently teams are also looking for specialists in departments like stunt coordinators, wardrobe and make-up.” No expense is spared on them.

Thanks to heavy investment, Abu Dhabi is awash with lavish production facilities including a flexible, 300,000 square meter backlot which is the biggest of its kind in the Middle East. It has paid off.

Over the past decade more than 180 major productions have been shot in Abu Dhabi. They include everything from Dune to Sonic the Hedgehog, Fast & Furious 7 and 2023’s spy sensation Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Star Wars: The Force Awakens even filmed scenes in Abu Dhabi’s Liwa desert which doubled for the sandy planet of Jakku.

“Our locations are extremely diverse yet easy to navigate,” says Al Jaberi. “Within two hours you can go from the rolling, pristine dunes of the Liwa desert to a futuristic, urban cityscape and then be on the water. From a visiting production team’s perspective that’s a huge plus when capitalizing on time on ground and moving large teams around.”

Sci-fi Surroundings

It only takes a few minutes in Abu Dhabi to feel like an extra on the set of a sci-fi film. Its skyscrapers soar so high that their tips are often shrouded in cloud and at night the haze is illuminated by brightly-colored LED lighting strips embedded in the buildings. They are anything but ordinary.

One skyscraper is disc-shaped while another seems to defy gravity as it leans out over the ocean seemingly unsupported. There’s even a hotel which looks like a beached spaceship and is covered in hundreds of tiny twinkling lights. They flash in synchronization so that shapes and messages stream down the structure’s sweeping curved cocoon. However, just minutes away are actual sand dunes and traditional Arabian forts.

Indeed, the backdrops in the city are so versatile that they convincingly stood in for the streets of Hong Kong and Los Angeles in 2019 Ryan Reynolds flick 6 Underground. Nevertheless, the movies which integrate Abu Dhabi’s avant-garde architecture into the plot are easily the most memorable.

In Fast and Furious 7, a supercar soared through the air between two of the city’s shimmering skyscrapers while Tom Cruise pulled off one of his famous runs across the sweeping arch atop the new Midfield Terminal at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. The finale of this summer’s blockbuster F1: The Movie was filmed during the actual Grand Prix at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit while part of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t was shot under the intricately-detailed dome of the city’s Louvre museum. The array of attractions casts such a powerful spell that film makers keep on coming back.

Abu Dhabi Returns

“We have forged some global partnerships with leading studios, directors and producers who enjoy filming in Abu Dhabi – so much so that they re-visit us for multiple productions,” says Dobay.

Not only were Dune and Dune: Part Two shot in the Liwa desert but filming for the third movie began there last month with stars Timothee Chalamet, Jason Momoa and Zendaya on set. The dusty environment was the perfect fit for the planet Arrakis, home to the valuable Spice product and the vicious sandworms.

“What I found in Abu Dhabi is unmatchable. There’s a scale to the dunes and the desert in a variety of shapes that we thought was absolutely mesmerising,” said director Denis Villeneuve in an interview with ADFC in 2021. “There are also some climatic conditions there that were perfect for us because of the proximity to the city; it’s like a strange kind of haze in that air that I was looking for that matched totally with the look of the film.”

Villeneuve liked Abu Dhabi so much that he has spent longer in the city each time he has filmed there. The first shoot for Dune lasted just five days while the second was almost a month long with more than 1,000 people working at a temporary village built in the desert. Filming for the third instalment spans October and November this year so may be even longer.

It was the second time round for Mission Impossible too following a jaw-dropping HALO jump sequence that was shot in Abu Dhabi for 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout. That was supported by ADFC, twofour54 and the UAE military. It was such a success for the city that when Cruise and co decided to return, Abu Dhabi gave them access to its new airport before it had even opened.

What’s more, despite the shoot taking place for 15 days at the height of the pandemic with 1,000 people on the set, there were no cases of Covid-19. That alone is testimony to the rigor of Abu Dhabi’s regulatory environment and its commitment to professionalism in film. Leaving no stone unturned, this shoot didn’t just involve ADFC, twofour54 and the UAE military but also the Ministry of Defence, Abu Dhabi Police, the Department of Health and the General Civil Aviation Authority.

Amongst the crew were 125 freelancers and 250 extras provided by the ADFC. They got invaluable experience working with the leading lights in the industry which in turn helps to build up a world-class grassroots industry in Abu Dhabi and brings greater benefit to the studios that shoot there. It explains why Dobay says that “we are constantly working with our local industry to identify opportunities to cross train and upskill.”

Abu Dhabi even arranged a partnership for the producers with flag carrier Etihad which flew the actors to premieres around the world on a specially-outfitted plane which reduced the risk of Covid infections. It enabled Cruise and co-stars, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff and Simon Pegg to walk the red carpet at Abu Dhabi’s opulent Emirates Palace hotel cementing the city’s status on the cinematic map. It generated more than 2,000 broadcast packages and print articles that prominently featured Abu Dhabi’s key role in the movie.

“There are economic benefits to supporting a premiere but for Abu Dhabi it’s about joining with other global destinations such as London and New York to celebrate our contributions to the film industry whilst marking the occasion with all those here in Abu Dhabi who make the shoots possible,” explains Al Jaberi.

“As part of our most recent hosted premiere moments, we’ve held junkets and photocalls in the Zayed International Airport and Louvre Abu Dhabi, created sandworms in the desert and built a 700-seater cinema on the Yas Marina Circuit – we want to always create a world-class experience for fans and returning cast and crew alike.”

The cinema he is referring to was a pop-up building built to host the F1 premiere. As always, ADFC and the CMA didn’t do it by halves. The building was the size of two football fields and was equipped with 135 speakers. As if that wasn’t enough, it was located on the same corner of the track where the dramatic finale of the movie takes place.

It meant that when viewers left the film they were met with the actual scenes they had just seen on the silver screen. The icing on the cake was a photo opp there with the actual car from the movie. It is an experience that literally could not be found elsewhere and, as Dobay says, it offered a “significant moment to celebrate, which in the fast-paced film production industry is a rarity but extremely important for all those involved in massive shoots.”

The Dream Ticket

The shoot for F1 in Abu Dhabi alone included around 500 crew members from abroad as well as nearly 280 UAE-based professionals and 15 home-grown interns doing everything from make-up and casting to production where they organised equipment and created badges and passes. They worked for a total of 29 days across the 2023 and 2024 races though, for many of them, this wasn’t their first experience in the film industry.

That’s because the interns typically start by working on smaller local productions, such as documentaries or short films, before moving on to larger projects. This ensures that they aren’t just learning on set, they are bringing their talents to the table. It’s not just a dream ticket for the interns and the studio but for Abu Dhabi too.

The F1 movie helped to “showcase Abu Dhabi, the circuit and the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on the big screen globally,” said Saif Rashid Al-Noaimi chief executive officer at Ethara which runs the race. “From our perspective, looking at the number of viewers that have seen the movie and the fact that it’s been called the summer blockbuster of 2025 is something we’re very proud of,” he added.

Al-Noaimi is a renowned motorsport manager with a 20 year career which began at private equity giant Mubadala. He started out as project associate and rose to become vice president before he joined Abu Dhabi Motorsport Management in 2017 following stints at other esteemed local organizations including the UAE government where he was executive director of strategic affairs.

The impact movies have on the economy can be clearly seen through the F1 movie. It promoted the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and Ethara’s skilled executive director of marketing, Michael Golding, spreads the word about the race. The result is that last year the race contributed $340.4 million to Abu Dhabi’s economy and also drove more than 30,000 visits to local attractions including the city’s theme parks.

They are run by government-backed Miral and its visionary chief executive Mohamed Al Zaabi is comfortably one of the most dynamic bosses in the industry. The INSEAD-educated manager began his 25-year career working for the UAE government before switching to Aldar Properties, Abu Dhabi’s biggest listed property developer where he rose to the role of director of strategic investment. This gave him high-level experience of the role real estate plays at the heart of the UAE’s economy and he put it to use when he moved to Miral in 2015.

Over the past 15 years Miral has developed a string of theme parks with each one being a step up from its predecessor. As Al Zaabi explained to this author in an interview in April, its aim is to ensure that the “next experience will be better than the previous one. That’s what we do always at Miral. We keep pushing the bar.” This culminated in the announcement in May that Abu Dhabi will become the home of Disney’s seventh theme park resort over the coming years.

It will deepen the links between Abu Dhabi and the movie industry which have already been cemented by Miral through its groundbreaking Warner Bros. World theme park and its marketing campaigns with A-listers including Momoa, Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds.

The success of these campaigns spurred Abu Dhabi itself to sign up Thor actor Chris Hemsworth for an advert which promotes the city. It shows Hemsworth and his wife filming a stunt for a fake Hollywood movie. During a break in the action, the pair dream of going on vacation and are then shown enjoying the activities that Abu Dhabi has to offer.

It follows a similar advertisement starring wrestler-turned-actor John Cena in 2021 and complements Abu Dhabi’s on-screen appearances. Thanks to Miral’s assistance, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t will showcase even more of Abu Dhabi’s attractions and also employed 175 local crew and six interns across its 13-day shoot. It makes an impact.

“‘Set jetting’, where people visit a location they have seen in a film, continues to be popular,” says Dobay. This is reflected in data from consultancy firm KPMG last year which estimated that the global film tourism market is increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 7.2%. It added that the sector was valued at $68.1 billion in 2022 but is expected to reach $110.8 billion by 2028.

Abu Dhabi is already reaping the benefits of this as its hotels welcomed 4.8 million guests between January and October last year, resulting in a 26% increase in international guests compared to 2023. That’s not all.

“Independent third-party studies show that for every dirham [$0.27] we pay out through the Abu Dhabi Film Commission’s cashback rebate, more than three dirhams [$0.82] flows back into the economy through a variety of means whether it’s through travel and accommodation or local employment opportunities for crew on set,” says Dobay.

The money flowing into the economy is the magic touch that Abu Dhabi was looking for but it may not be the real legacy. Long after people have forgotten about the sports matches that took place and the advertisements that were published, they will still be watching Abu Dhabi in movies on Blu Ray, streaming or whatever format prevails in the future and that really is a happy ending.

Additional reporting by Chris Sylt